Boice

Toward the end of July, Frontline in partnership with ProPublica began airing a series, Life & Death in Assisted Living; its full transcript is now available via ebook. With the increasing numbers of seniors who reside in assisted living facilities, an alarming number of stories of neglect and abuse have surfaced. Frontline investigators delved into case studies, offering insights about problems with this loosely regulated multi-billion dollar industry.

Frontline’s series “Life & Death in Assisted Living” is running on PBS and a full transcript is also available as an ebook. assisted living facilities, Frontline/ProPublica (PP) investigated this loosely regulated multi-billion dollar industry.

The series began with a focus on the tragic story of Joan Boice, which I blogged about earlier this spring. Frontline compared and contrasted the Seattle based assisted living facility’s marketing pitch with reality.

For example, “specially trained” staffers weren’t really trained to care for people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, a violation of California law. At its best, there was only one nurse to track all of the residents’ health. The turnover of medical professionals was high. In fact, one of them who left wrote Emeritus’ senior executives about the facility’s “ huge shortage of staff” and that the facility was mired in “total dysfunction.”

EMERALD HILLS BROCHURE

Apparently, there were months when a full-time nurse was not even on the facility’s payroll. Residents with incontinence issues were allowed to urinate repeatedly in the same spot in a hallway repeatedly.

But Ms. Boice’s husband and two sons saw only the facility as it was presented, as a respite for their aging mother who suffered from Alzheimer’s. They agreed to pay over $4,625 a month for Joan to receive care as a resident at the Emerald Hills facility and another $2,500/month for her husband.

Less than two weeks after Joan moved in, an ambulance crew found her face-down on the carpet. She had struck her head on the floor with such force that she had bruises on her forehead and cheeks. No one at Emerald Hills, however, knew how Joan had fallen or how long she had been laying on the floor. She had defecated and urinated on herself.

Although Myron, Joan’s husband, was also a resident at the facility, no one informed him about this startling event as Joan was transported to the hospital without any facility employee to accompany her. Joan’s son, Eric, got the call from the hospital later that night.

California law requires assisted living companies to conduct a “pre-admission appraisal” of prospective residents, to ensure they are appropriate candidates for assisted living. However, the assisted living facility never conducted the appraisal of Joan. They failed to consider Joan’s family’s warnings before her move in: They had warned Emerald Hills that Joan shouldn’t sit in a chair without supervision, given her history of losing her balance whenever she would get up. But despite this warning, Joan’s daughter-in-law would visit Joan to find her sitting by herself in a chair without anybody else in the room.

The Frontline investigation exposes the gaps in the law that have allowed assisted living and nursing home facilities like Emeritus’ Emerald Hills to endanger and kill senior citizens like Mrs Boice.

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About Kevin

Kevin Coluccio was recently named one of the Top 10 Super Lawyers in Washington State. He has long history of successful elder abuse/neglect cases and has a stellar reputation for getting results for his injury clients in serious car crashes, pedestrian accidents, trucking accidents, maritime claims, and asbestos injury cases.